Fortunately, this time the user was smart and recognize that something was wrong: he report to me that his workstation was pretty slot, taking longer time to boot everyday. This slowness seems to be cause by huge activity on disk. Well.. WinXP (as all windows version) have the strange habit that they become slower when time passes.. this is ok if you're a human a get closes to 60 but a bit weird (IMOH) if you are a 2/3 years old PC.
Having smartmontools on my Sysadmin Swiss Knife USB key, I just run "smartctl -t short sda" (this is a WinXP machine, but smartmontool are available for Win too and the work pretty well there too). The tool reports and error on a sector: usually this means that the drive will fail soon.
Fortunately (again) I just buy a spare SATA disk a few days before: by speaking with the user and his manager, we decide to re-install the whole system on the brand new HDD ASAP.
Reinstalling WinXP should be pretty easy.. or not? Well.. this is a Win7Pro machine, one of the first we buy when WinXP was EOL and OEM does not sell WinXP anymore (does Canonical says that you cannot install Ubuntu 8.04 anymore????? I hate those politics on commercial software..)
We choose to downgrade it as WinXP Pro, due the fact that ALL our machine has WinXP on them, so why do I have to waste my sysadmin time in managing two Win version if I can manage only one? Why do my users have to learn another OS if the can work with a more comfortable one?
Let's go back to the install issue.. I cannot find the original CD provided with the PC, so I take another WinXP SP2 disk and install that.. When installer ask for Product Key I entered the one printed on PC chassis label.. it was wrong? Damn..
Looking a bit closes to the Product Key it says that it's a Win7 product.. Damn (again)
Finding solution for problem on closed source project it's harder that the same on FOSS.
After a bit of googling I just turn to the old fashion "phone call to the one how sell it". The answer was something like this "dont worry, enter a product key of another winxp instance".
mmmhhh.. "this doesn't broke the "another instance" installation activation?"
answer: "well.. it may, but usually it does not." - in my experience this is not true.. but someone of you my try this at home
me: "any other solution?"
answer: "enter the product key of the other instance but do not activate on-line. Choose to activate by phone" - in 2012?!?!?!?!?!!? arggggggggghhhhhhh!!! - " a recorded voice will ask you to enter the code displayed on screen. Do not enter anything, the voice will repeat a few times and later will turn you to an (human) operator. Tell the operator that you have an old instance of Win7 to downgrade to WinXP" - old because you cannot downgrade anymore, sic - "he will ask you the product code of Win7 and should generate a new key to activate WinXP correctly"
Damn.. this will take a lifetime.. I buy the license, I pay for it and now I have to waste a lot of time for activation process.. BTW Oracle does not do anything like that, even on its database license. They just kick your ass if they find you, but let you work without wasting time..
I did the whole process and enter a big (nearly 40, I think) number at the end of activation process.
So, if you have to re-install a Win7 to WinXP downgrade process as follows:
- install from any WinXP CD and enter any valid Product Key you have
- when activating the product DONT activate online, but do it on the phone
- when the recorded voice ask you to enter the number on screen, do NOT enter them. Even if recorded, the voice, sooner or later, will become bored about your inability of press phone digits. And will redirect you to a human operator
- the human operator is, of course, human, so you can speak with him/her and tell what you're trying to do
- if he/she says that downgrade is not possible in 2012, tell him/her that you're a sysadmin that's re-installing an old workstation: it HAVE to be a WinXP due policy restriction on your site. This should be enough to go ahead on activation process
- tell his/her your Win7 Product Key (which is a bit hard on phone.. but possible!)
- after a bit of working he/she will generate a new product key for WinXP and redirect you to the recorded voice (again!) that this time will just tell you the very-long-number to enter on-screen for activation
- you're done. Enjoy your eXPerience with licensed products!!!!
I'm a Linux sysadmin, but, of course, I have to work with Win too.
The Win lacks of a default decent command line shell is' already a big problem for me.
The lacks of a default decent REMOTE command line shell is a bigger problem for me.
The lacks of a default packet manager, capable of install/upgrade/update not only the OS but also all the installed software, is another problem for me.
But.. managing license and activation code is even worst. I bought the OS license (you have to do it: there's only a few OEM that give you the options of buy a workstation without OS!!) and now I cannot use them because MS just says that the product is EOL?
Cut the product support (which, BTW, I've never used), cut the bug/security hotfixes (which I do install, but without a good antivirus are meaningless) but, please, allow me to install a software that I already pay for easily!!!
